About that scar

Recently I had someone email me (rather nicely, I might add) asking about Sophie's scar. To be quite honest she has had it for so long that I often forget it's there. I thought it would be easier for me to do a little post about it in case anyone else is interested, but leery about asking. 
\When Sophie was born the doctor handed her to me all nice and wrapped up. As I turned her to me to take a good look at her I noticed that she had a mark on her forehead. After I asked about it I learned that it was what is known as a nevus.

I had never heard of it so I just kind assumed it was something that would eventually go away. I didn't really think too much of it and kind of thought that when she was older I would check into getting it removed. In my mind I thought doctors can remove anything with a laser so it should be a piece of cake. In my eyes it didn't matter that she had this spot on her, she was still beautiful. I did have a few people make comments that were very hurtful and after one execptional jerk person remarked that it must have been something that I did I began to get a little depressed. Then one day my mom called to tell me that our local shriners group was having a clinic and they wanted to see Sophie. I was completely clueless as to what she was talking about. She explained that in addition to helping children that have burns, cleft palates, etc. they also have a program for children with birthmarks. I finally took Sophie just so that I could tell my mom I did. I explained to the people there that I had insurance, but was basically told it did not matter that they wanted to help. So after talking it over with husband and researching the plastic surgeon they wanted us to see (in Cincinnati!) we decided it wouldn't hurt to check things out. So when Sophie was three months old she, husband and I drove over twelve hours to see the doctor. Scariest trip of my life! I'm from the deep, deep south where we rarely ever have snow and we ended up going through a snow storm. There were car pile ups everywhere! We finally made it and when the doctor took a look at Sophie we knew things weren't good. See in just those three short months that we had Sophie the nevus had changed tremendously. It had grown, darkened and become lumpy in places. The doctor told us that we needed to have it removed because if we didn't we would be looking at a cancer diagnosis soon. So we began talking about our options. Due to the size of it and the fact that it was located so close to her eyes they could not go in and remove it and sew it back up (laser was out because it wouldn't go in deep enough) without messing up her eyes. Basically our only option was skin graft. So right before she turned four months old we made that long trip again to have the surgery. On a side note, while husband was parking the car I took Kylie, Audrey and Sophie into the hospital to sign in. At the hospital they have this big play structure for the children in the lobby. Kylie and Audrey were playing on it and when Audrey went to get off she stepped wrong and broke her leg. In the hospital! So, yeah I was kind of stressed. So anyway, she had the surgery and the rest is history.

 She does go and have her graft checked on a yearly basis. Luckily we take her to New Orleans for that so no long trip anymore. So far things have gone very well, but there is talk that we may have another surgery down the road to make the scar a bit smaller. Hopefully that won't be for awhile though. I did keep her hair cut in bangs for years to kind of hide the scar.

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I finally got brave and let them grow out and while we do occasionally get looks, they are few and far between. She has another year before she begins school and I think that will probably be when we have to start dealing with the questions. Hopefully it won't be too bad.